June, 2002

The Matilda schools reopened on the first of the month. Due to hot weather conditions very few children attended the classes during the first week. New admissions began to come in large numbers. We were not prepared to handle the situation. We had to provide more classroom space, as well as employ new teaching staff. The Lord helped to over come both the problems.

Ben Wright, a 22-year-old young person from the Bruderhof community in the USA, came to serve at Matilda school as a teacher. We are happy to receive him.

May, 2002

Summer holidays. The 7th class Government Board exam results came. All those who wrote the exams passed in 1st class. The young people in Devarkonda wanted to take a bicycle rally to distribute Christian literature, but the local Hindu groups advised us not to do this.

Doris was in hospital for kidney problem. Our prayers for her recovery were answered and friends helped with finances for the surgery.

April, 2002

This is a busy month for our two Matilda schools. This is the time for examinations, corrections, grading and preparing progress report cards. There are about 700 students in total in the two schools.

On April 24 the school children performed a musical show called East Meets West, which took many hours of rehearsals. The show attracted nearly 900 parents, visitors and local persons.

Harry and Marlene Schmidt, Lydia and Clarence Knippel and Jim Degeer of British Columbia were the chief guests for this annual day of celebration.

The Matilda Schools closed down for summer holidays, and all the Bindu children were sent home to visit their relatives.

Mark Clement and his son Dwayne of Bruderhof the community in New York left for Kerala from where they departed to their homeland. Mark taught English and Dwayne taught the pre-school children at the Matilda schools.